How Quoinop started their logo design journey

Company name

Quoinop

Overview

We are a funded, soon-to-launch startup creating an online service that provides an essential building block for anyone building a large scale web site. In other words, we're currently small but soon to be big.

Tell us a bit about who you are and the people you reach

Our audience is primarily technical types, mostly male, the type of folks who hang out on Digg (http://www.digg.com) or Hacker News (http://news.ycombinator.com/). However we'd like to create a smooth, stylish, aspirational identity that is classier than your typical computer company stuff.

Requirements

We're looking for a nice clean, modern logotype that incorporates our name "Quoinop" and a design element. Something like the 99designs logo itself up there.

Ideally we'd like something along the lines of what Pentagram would come up with -- classy, enduring, flexible, simple, intelligent:

But with some color! Something bright, simple, and clear on a white background. Orange, blue, red -- a simple combo. No pink or purple. Web safe colors.

Perhaps something that plays with the leading Q (uppercase or lowercase), maybe doing something with the descenders on the Q and/or P.

The name is a play on "coin-op", as in coin operated arcade games. So something incorporating a reference to a 1 cent coin might be interesting -- but nothing too super-obvious or clip-artful please. Having a coin reference in there is not required and should only be there if there's a tasteful way to incorporate.